Human Error Likely French Train Crash

A head-on train collision between French and Italian passenger trains that killed two people appeared to be the result of human error, France's transportation minister said Tuesday.

Transportation Minister Gilles de Robien said an investigation into Monday's collision, which also left four people seriously injured, would take at least two weeks.

For now, he told French television station LCI, the cause "appears to have been human error."

The two trains slammed into each other in the Biogna tunnel, an Alpine passage in southeast France near the Italian border.

Authorities are trying to determine why both trains were cleared to enter the tunnel, which has only one set of rail tracks running through it.

The two dead, both from the Italian train, were identified as the train's engineer and conductor, the president of SNCF, France's rail authority, said Monday.

Gilles Cartier called the head-on collision a "rare accident" for France's rail system, saying it was unprecedented in his six years running the SNCF. He vowed that a thorough investigation would determine the cause.

The French train was carrying five passengers and was traveling between Nice and Tende, a French town near the collision site. The Italian train was carrying about 200 people and was on a route that passes through France and links the Italian cities of Torino and Ventimiglia.

The safety of mountain passages in the Alps has been a cause of deep concern since a 1999 fire in the Mont Blanc tunnel linking France and Italy that killed 39 people.